Help in the quest for Silent PC's - post your ideas

hmm, what's wrong with changing the fan in the PSU you have to a decent fan (about 5 quid I'd suggest panaflow) (and possibly 7V modding it).

Job done.

I have done this to all my PCs, replace the fans with decent near silent fans. These fans are quieter than a spinning HD.
 
Caution

I use a Seasonic and they are excellent and very quiet. This is because of their highly efficient design, quiet large diameter fan and the fact that your system is not going to load up one of these PSU's. :cool: However, a quiet PSU fan moves next to no air (that's why it's quiet!) so your passivly cooled CPU, chipset, memory, hdd etc will not receive ANY cooling because there is NEXT TO NO air flow through the case! :( So you may then need to add cooling fans thus raising the noise levels again :eek:
 
Been using the Hiper Tyoe-R 580 Watt, had no problems with it am very happy with it and most of all it's very very quiet. I know some people say theirs are loud, but thats either down to tolerance or bad batch.
 
You are right stvmor, without even a psu fan proving some airlow, the p3 will be marginal. The only way to tell how well natural convection will help in the case is to try it. I am currently running a p3 fanless on a desk (no case) and temps are comfortable though.
If it is marginal a single 120mm nexus at 7 or 5v will prove more than enough airflow for all the components - and you won't get a quieter fan than that. It will still give 007 the quietest pc possible.

As for swapping psu fans - i agree it can be a good way of making things quieter without spending money - however it's really important to make sure people know that PSUs are dangerous. The capactiors hold enough charge to kill or at least give a very nasty shock. Often the heatsinks etc are live. Simply turning off the power is not enough - the capacitors will not discharge. Anyone who opens up their PSU needs to take real care.
Also - reducing the airflow to the PSU is venturing into unnown territory. You can't know how well the PSU has been designed. Although a slower fan may cool the main heatsinks sufficiently - some smaller components may no longer have sufficient airflow and could fail. Worst case scenario the PSU failing could take out many of your pc components with it :/
It's worth being aware too that on a 430W seasonic (one of the most efficient PSus out there) Although at higher loads it peaks at over 80% efficient, at the low low loads that 007s pc will use, the psu could be as low as 60% efficient!

the picopsu etc may be more expensive but it certainly gives some bragging rights and makes an interesting project :) That's half the fun of modding/overclocking pcs. I'm sure that's why we're all here and not buying Dells :)
 
marc mercer said:
You are right stvmor, without even a psu fan proving some airlow, the p3 will be marginal. The only way to tell how well natural convection will help in the case is to try it. I am currently running a p3 fanless on a desk (no case) and temps are comfortable though.
If it is marginal a single 120mm nexus at 7 or 5v will prove more than enough airflow for all the components - and you won't get a quieter fan than that. It will still give 007 the quietest pc possible.

As for swapping psu fans - i agree it can be a good way of making things quieter without spending money - however it's really important to make sure people know that PSUs are dangerous. The capactiors hold enough charge to kill or at least give a very nasty shock. Often the heatsinks etc are live. Simply turning off the power is not enough - the capacitors will not discharge. Anyone who opens up their PSU needs to take real care.
Also - reducing the airflow to the PSU is venturing into unnown territory. You can't know how well the PSU has been designed. Although a slower fan may cool the main heatsinks sufficiently - some smaller components may no longer have sufficient airflow and could fail. Worst case scenario the PSU failing could take out many of your pc components with it :/
It's worth being aware too that on a 430W seasonic (one of the most efficient PSus out there) Although at higher loads it peaks at over 80% efficient, at the low low loads that 007s pc will use, the psu could be as low as 60% efficient!

the picopsu etc may be more expensive but it certainly gives some bragging rights and makes an interesting project :) That's half the fun of modding/overclocking pcs. I'm sure that's why we're all here and not buying Dells :)
Click to expand...

Good points marc. In my 'newer' machines I try to treat the psu as an individual component with it's own cooling. In my older machines (I use a few P3 HP desktops) I find they are very quiet with 'passive' cooling on cpu's but this is totally reliant on the excellent design and high quality matched PSU's they contain.

I use a few Akasa 120 amber's and find them a match for any fan (I also have some very nice Antecs). However, they are only good for cases which can accomodate these large fans unless there's some space available, then I sometimes get out the Dremmel. :eek:

Faced with your machine and keeping costs down I think the little Seasonic would be my first purchase but order an Akasa of the appropriate size as well (to save on postage) and use it on 5v to suck some air from your case. Monitor temps and noise and adjust accordingly. Also, if the machine is restricted for air (i.e. stuffed into a cupboard or under a desk) try to imagine where the cool air will come from and, more importantly, where the hot air can escape to! Even water coolers need to exhaust heat from a radiator and it has to go somewhere! ;)
 
if it's a silent firwall router your after look to go mini-itx. the boards can be fanless and as they use so little in the way of power the can be driven from a completely silent laptop style power supply. The best way to silence the harddrive is to go compact flash, get a nice big card and an adapter and you can use this as your main drive then access larger storage in a different room via the LAN
 
a1ex2001 said:
if it's a silent firwall router your after look to go mini-itx. the boards can be fanless and as they use so little in the way of power the can be driven from a completely silent laptop style power supply. The best way to silence the harddrive is to go compact flash, get a nice big card and an adapter and you can use this as your main drive then access larger storage in a different room via the LAN
Click to expand...

Good idea's but I think he's after a cheap mod of an existing machine?

Have you tried this flash mem drive? Sounds interesting and fast! :)
 
I will respond to the answers soon, but please bear in mind that i require 2 network sockets, ie. at the moment i am using 2 isa's and 1 pci.
1x incoming traffic,
1x outgoing trafific for the wired network
1x outgoing traffic for the wireless network.

regards
007
 
quietest one ive had is a hiper, ive had several enermaxes, good but not as quiet,
also some good stealth case fans
and variable control on the zalman 9500
and on the zalman gpu fan
 
Well, i have had quite a few different PSU's myself and when i have bought for family etc. I have a Seasonic 500w of which i cannot hear at all! I am one of those guys that loves peace and quiet when it comes to pc's. I cannot recommend it highly enough. Absolutely quiet.

As for Hard drives, well, my hard drive is suspended in the CDrom bay with sewing elastic. This is the best and cheapest way to quieten down a Hard Drive. Also, it does not heat up like it would in an enclosure. Cost pence to do and is very effective indeed.
 
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